Three different ways of using an image.

I was at Zürich airport last weekend to say goodbye to a family member.

I neglected to take a camera with me as I thought it would be a quick goodbye at the airport and then back home. 

I was mistaken.

There is an observation deck open to the public which costs only Fr 5 and affords the visitor some splendid photo opportunities so we decided to take a look.

After seeing all the aircraft taking off from such a great vantage point, I decided to take a few snaps. 

First off I used the panorama function on my Samsung Galaxy S3 to take in a wide area of the apron.

This is the view I got with five images.

Press the play button and you can use your mouse to "move around" in the image.

I then went to the other end of the observation deck and watched the larger aircraft taking off.

It was a very sunny day and I could hardly see the screen on my phone even when it was shielded by my hand. I found myself having to use reference points to guess when the aeroplane would be visible. With that in mind, I decided to use the "burstmode" on the Galaxy to make sure that I would get the 'plane in view ( the so called spray and pray method so beloved of many sports photographers ). On the Samsung Galaxy this is activated simply by holding your finger on the release button. I was making around twenty images in a few seconds.

Burst sequence on the Galaxy S3

When I got home, I had the idea of making an animated Gif of this sequence.

A quick search online led me to this website which makes free gifs using images that you upload. I simply resized all the images I needed then uploaded them. In seconds I was presented with an animated gif of the Swiss aeroplane taking off.

Animated gif, courtesy of Gifmaker.me

One of the images I decided, would make a great desktop background, so I loaded it into Snapseed. After lightening the shadows a bit and increasing the saturation a touch, I was ready to use this image on my PC.

 My new PC background

I did take several other images that day but they will have to wait for another post.

I hope you enjoyed reading this.

Through fresh eyes.

I've noticed that when I go somewhere new, I see and photograph things that the residents often overlook.

You may remember my blog post "Back in time" when I photographed Herr Alois Zäch who was on the development team that created the World's first watch with built in illumination.

At the end of that piece, I said "On the way home I spotted a lovely little shrine beside the road and made a mental note to return and photograph it."

One week later I found the time to return.

From the outside, i.e. when you pass the shrine in a car, it's pretty unremarkable. Just a small bleached white building with a red tiled roof under a tree.

It's quite easy to miss 
(screenshots from Google Earth)

Parking proved to be the first problem. There was no space beside the shrine itself so I parked in a lay-by about 500 - 600 meters away from the shrine. (Number 1 on the screenshot)

I was a baking hot day so I was travelling light. Taking with me only the Eos 5d MK II together with a 70 - 200 and the trusty 17 - 40.

The first thing I wanted to do was to photograph the shrine with no road beside it, to try and lend an air of tranquillity to the image. I found a spot on a hill overlooking the shrine (number 2 on he screenshot) and used the 70 - 200 at the low end to get the composition I was looking for.

1st image from position 2

Not too pleased with this view because of the tree obscuring the shrine.Unfortunately  that was the only place where the road was hidden so I decided to do my photography around the shrine itself.

Both images here were taken at 17mm focal length. I simply moved further away from the shrine for the second image.

 Same viewpoint but with the camera in a horizontal position

This is the front of the shrine. I didn't have a flash with me so I used HDR to bring out the shadow details

This, however, is my favourite image from that day. There is no trace of the road (although cars were whizzing past me all the time) and I think it has a tranquil air about it. I converted the original image from RAW to a JPG and further processed it in Snapseed.

Feel free to leave some comments and thanks for reading. 

Snapseed

I was up early this morning in a place that I hadn't previously visited. After I had parked my car, I noticed an old factory building which I knew I had to photograph.

Unfortunately I was only carrying my mobile phone with me ( a Samsung Galaxy S3 ) but I decided anyway to get a visual record of the building. The image I captured was very blue as the sun was only just beginning to rise. 

 Straight out of the phone

When I got home, I didn't even bother to open the image on my PC. Instead I opened it in a mobile phone App called Snapseed. This is a wonderful programme that allows an image to be almost endlessly manipulated. The user can alter the white balance, sharpness and saturation etc. Also available are different effects such as B&W, grunge and sepia (amongst others ) 

For the finished image, I used the settings to darken the sky behind the building, Crop the car out on the left, lighten the building itself, add just a touch of vignetting and grain, convert it to monochrome and add a funky frame. 

 After the Snapseed treatment

I like this particular programme / App so much that I have the paid for version on my PC and the free versions on my iPad and my phone.

At the time of writing, the App was still available from its makers Nik Software for free download on the Google Play store.

Thanks for reading.